Jim Schatz designs works of art that help keep our feathered friends nourished
Ask me about my best recent investment, and I will tell you without hesitation that it’s bird feed. No other purchase under $20 provides a fraction of the pleasure that a 40-pound bag of black oil sunflower seed does.
It turns one’s home into a perpetual house party whose guest list includes sociable chickadees, eye-grabbing cardinals, tweeting titmice and an assortment of hammering woodpeckers.
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And while they frequent all 12 of my feeders, the one they seem most attracted to for its easy perching and, I have to believe, aesthetic grace is a ceramic feeder in the shape of a brightly colored egg.
It is manufactured by Jim Schatz, a designer I have been eager to meet for years, who happened to be in town a couple of weekends ago. I requested an audience for no other reason than to express my gratitude that somebody finally had the temerity to make a seed dispenser that is a thing of beauty.
The typical cylindrical feeder—I have a bunch of those—does the job but in a dour way that denies the basic instinct driving those of us who birdwatch: because it’s fun.
ENLARGENot the same sort of fun as riding a zip line across a gorge, perhaps, but fun nonetheless.
I knew virtually nothing about Mr. Schatz, other than the photograph ofhim and his partner, Peter Souza, in the J Schatz catalog. When we met, Mr. Schatz told me he is 46 years old, grew up in North Dakota and attended college at San Francisco State University. He moved to New York City in the late 90s; these days, he and Mr. Souza live in Providence, R.I.
In some ways I felt I already knew him, our connection thriving whenever I filled my two artfully designed egg-shaped feeders—one sumac red, the other a limited-edition jacaranda purple. It’s a process that requires a certain amount of care, especially in winter when your hands are freezing, and at $165 each, dropping and shattering one, which I’ve done, constitutes a major disappointment.
Mr. Schatz said his business began, perhaps unsurprisingly, over his obsession with eggs as objects.
An antiestablishment member of San Francisco’s arts scene, Mr. Schatz initially resisted a friend’s suggestion that he turn his interest toward the functional; in New York, he was eventually persuaded that it was possible to make something both beautiful and useful without selling out.
ENLARGEMr. Schatz’s first product was an egg-shaped, midnight-blue night light, the light projecting through tiny holes on the egg. The effect was as if he figured out a way to bottle the evening sky.
He moved to upstate New York, where his fascination for birds grew, as did his frustration at the unavailability of attractive feeders.
On a return visit to the city, the source of all good ideas, it was suggested that he make a feeder in the shape of an egg. “You’re the egg man,” Mr. Schatz was reminded.
So he did, the result named by Fortune as one of the 25 best products of 2004. So many orders poured in that he had to install a second kiln. Today his business operates six and sell thousands of feeders a year, as well as lamps and stoneware.
The one thing Mr. Schatz hasn’t managed yet is a squirrel-proof feeder, though he insists that hanging his from a 3-foot wire works magic, the wily rodents uncomfortable about jumping the divide.
My experience says otherwise. I have one of his feeders hung between two trees, maybe 10 feet apart, and squirrels still manage to crash-land on it. My solution has been to hang an LP from the vinyl-coated wire that connects the feeder to the branch, so that the critters have to reach around it.
They can still get to the seeds, but they can’t tip over the whole thing for friends and family.
Of course, that undermines the beauty of Mr. Schatz’s creation and his meticulous attention to detail. Even the holes that the rods slide through are egg-shaped.
“We’re prototyping an untraditional birdbath,” Mr. Schatz told me.
I wasn’t in the market for a birdbath. Until now.